Im losing weight

So I weighed myself this morning and I am down six pounds.  That makes 2 pounds per week.  I am very happy with that.  I have lost fast in the past and gained it all back plus some.  This time I am trying to lose slow and see if I can keep it off.  Go me!!

Diet and exercise

For those of you who follow my blog, you will know that I have started several workout programs.  The ones I have talked about the most are Insanity and Asylum.  I really like both of these work outs, but they are very intense.  In fact they are too intense for a fat middle aged guy like me.  Needless to say I need to lose some weight and get in shape before I take those DVDs on.  I told you yesterday that I am trying to clean up my diet.  I am juicing and I started a new work out DVD series by none other than Jillian Michaels called body revolution.  I have done the first two workouts one last night and one this morning.  I think that I am really going to love this series.  First of all the workouts are only 30 minutes long, second she starts off with "easier" exercises that a tub of lard like me can handle.  I have enjoyed the workouts so far and they aren't going to injure me like I was injured by Asylum.  It was my own fault but I did get a minor shoulder injury.  I am feeling better with the juice and cutting out soda.  I will keep you posted, I weighed myself for the first time this morning, and I will let you know how much weight I am able to drop.

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Diet

I along with many Americans am over weight.  I'm not going to be on  the show my 600 lb life, but I could stand to lose about 40 pounds.  My wife and I watched a video the other day talking about how to lose weight.  The video was an hour and a half so I won't go into much detail about it in this post.  The main thing I took away from the video was that we don't always need to make huge changes.  The idea is to start incorporating things into our diet so that we eventually get to the point where we say, I can have that but I don't want it rather, than I can't have that.  With that said I am starting to add juice to my diet.  Not the juice you buy in the store but juice from vegetables and fruits juiced at home.  Yesterday was my first day adding juice to my diet and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  I had a small glass of juice in the morning for breakfast and that was it.  I stayed full until lunch, which is no small feat.  I felt like I had more energy, and felt a little clearer.  I was amazed.  The juice contained carrots, spinach, parsley, cilantro, apple, cucumber, and celery.  The juice it looked a little off, it was green after all.  But it tasted quite good.  I will keep you posted on how it goes but I am excited to see if making a few small changes will help me feel better.  On a side note I am cutting out all soda.  Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

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Fighting the Turd.

I have a daughter who is a one of the biggest sweet hearts I know.  She is also "champion of the picked on".  She will always stand up for other kids who are being teased or riddiculed even if it's behind their back.  Because she is a sweet heart and a very sensitive girl she gets her feeling hurt easily, which makes it difficult for her when she stands up for other kids.  Last night I picked her up from the sport she plays, and she came out of the building crying.  She was very upset.  I asked her what had happened and she told me a story full of injustice and drama.  The story in a nutshell is this, she stood up for a friend of hers who is on the team, and the girl who was saying mean things about her friend then started being "mean" to my daughter.  This is a very common theme by the way.  I am frustrated because many of the problems she has she brings on herself by defending other kids.  I dont want to tell her to stop defending others because I think that is a good trait to have, but at the same time when she does she ends up in a bad mood or in tears.  In a moment of inspriation it occured to me that I can use her experience to teach her an important lesson in life.  I called it fighting the turd. 
One issue she had yesterday was this other girl "cut" in front of my daughter in a line they were in.  My daughter of course started it up with this girl.  So I told her that her decision to fight about, (not a physical fight) or argue about it was hers to make, and that I wasn't going to tell her what to do.  But I did tell her that if she wanted to take on this girl, who we referred to as the "TURD", she needed to expect to get some poop on her.  In other words she cant expect to stand up for others or herself with out a backlash.  I have found that in life we need to pick our battles.  We need to decide if it is worth it to fight the bullys and protect the innocent.  I happen to like the fact that she stands up for others, and tries to help those in need.  But many times that isn't the the popular way to go, especially on the grade school playground.  I could see the light come on in her eyes.  It was the first time I have really felt like she understood and agreed with what I had said.  I think that I have helped her understand that if you are going to stand up for what is right instead of being a sheep in the crowd, someone will always disagree with you, and that is ok. 

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Thrive not just survive

Often times in life it seems we get so busy with work, school, kids, grand kids, church, friends, etc. that we don't take time to enjoy the simple things in life.  The other day I was riding in the car with my wife and she was reading a book and she would periodically share parts of the book with me.  One sentence she read to me was, The key to happiness in life is learning to thrive not just survive.  I am quoting from memory but that was essentially it.

I really had to stop and think about that for a minute.  There are so many things in life that are beyond our control.  We never know from day to day or minute to minute if something bad will happen to us or some one we know.  We never know when tragedy will strike or hardship will reign supreme in our lives.  The only thing that is certain is that we will all experience tragedy and hardship.

So how do we thrive instead of just survive when the bad times come?  I am not 100% sure I have the answer.  But I often think that it is all about how we look at it.  When events in life come we have the choice to be angry or be happy.  Let me give you an example.  When I was a kid I would ask my dad to tell me a story at bed time.  I used to say if he could make me laugh the story was over.  Well as you can imagine I would do my best to not laugh, and I was quite good at it.  I was taking a happy event and nullifying it.  Now I know this is very different from a tragic event in life but I believe that the same principal applies.  We choose how we feel.  It isn't always an easy choice but I truly believe we choose how we feel.

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